Shoppers can now use their phones to make in-store purchases – thanks to a "contactless" payment system on mobiles.

Orange's Quick Tap system, the first of its kind in the UK, works on enabled Samsung Tocco Lite phones and from today allows customers to use contactless readers at tills in 50,000 stores across the UK for transactions of up to £15.

Outlets such as McDonald's, Eat, Boots, Wilkinson, Pret A Manger and Subway already allow consumers to use their contactless cards (of which there are 12.9m – 11.4m of them Barclays debit and Barclaycard credit cards) to make payments, also with a £15 limit, but Orange's Jason Rees said mobile payments were a superior service.

"You can now check your balance on your mobile phone's screen and see how much you are spending, which you cannot immediately do when touching your debit or credit card on contactless readers," he said. "Feedback from the trials we have done are overwhelmingly positive, with two thirds of triallists wanting to take up the service."

Phone users can transfer up to £100 at a time to their phone from a credit or debit card and store up to a maximum £150, transforming the phones into electronic wallets with the phones themselves loaded with cash rather than the funds being debited from users' bank accounts.

"There is a security benefit," said Rees. "Some people might like to leave their wallet at home and use their phone to pay for items. Most people PIN-protect their smartphones so there is less security risk if they lose the device and they would not have to cancel all their different cards."

David Chan, the chief executive of Barclaycard Consumer Europe, added: "Customers can use their mobile to pay for goods and services safe in the knowledge that this is a secure technology brought to them by the biggest names in payments and mobile technology.

"Having a wallet on my phone has made it much more convenient to make purchases on the move and I like that it allows me to keep track of what I'm spending as I go."

Pippa Dunn, the Orange vice-president, applauded the new technology. She said: "Orange Quick Tap is the first of its kind, a service that allows you to pay for everyday items just by tapping your phone wherever you see the contactless payment symbol. It's going to start a revolution in the way we pay for things on the high street."

To use the system, customers will have to purchase a Quick Tap-enabled Samsung Tocco Lite phone, available at £59.99 on pay-as-you-go or for free on pay-monthly contracts from £10 per month on 24 month contracts.

Rees said he was unable to speculate on customer projections but added that he was confident Orange had launched an innovative service the public would want. "We're really excited about this. Half of people who trialled Quick Tap said the availability of contactless payments via their phone would influence their decision to purchase a mobile."

Not all stores offer contactless payment, with 52,000 terminals across 50,000 stores in the UK, mainly in cafes or food outlets. The UK Cards Association predicted that even by the end of 2012, only one in four UK consumers would have a debit or credit card that can make contactless payments – mobile technology is a further leap into the unknown.

Orange pointed to a recent report by Juniper Research that said one in six mobile phones would be able to conduct mobile payments by 2014, putting the potential market at 950 million phone users globally.

"We think this is the future, and it will hopefully be fully collaborative with other mobile manufacturers coming on board," added Rees. "It will not be too long before you will be able to tap your phone to get on a bus or a tube and even buy gig tickets through your mobile."

Users will be able to use the new technology at overseas stores that have contactless readers, although Chan said payments would still be subject to currency transaction fees in the same way debit transactions are.

Telefónica, owner of O2 in the UK, trialled a similar service with Visa in Spain last year, but rather than taken from funds loaded on to the phones, purchases were immediately debited from users' bank accounts.